Story 'bout a taxi ride to Phnom Penh...and a grampa

Written by Jonathan on July21

So now for today's story. On the way back from Mondulkiri we got a taxi to take us to Phnom Penh. It wasn't one of those camry deals with a huge tank in the back, this was a minibus with three rows of seats. So the guy shows up at our guesthouse at 8 in the morning. He throws our bags in the back with other random boxes and what appear to be several sacks of potatoes. We pile into the van and settle in the the back most row which has plenty of room for Jess Emily and I. (We are actually sitting in this order from left to right.) Thinking that we were gonna have a comfortable ride back we set off from the guesthouse. But we don't even leave town, instead we stop to pick up another passenger. By now the van is full, three in front including the driver. Three in the middle. And the three of us in the back. Then we stop to pick up another passenger. This time there are several people standing by the side of the road waiting for the taxi so I scoot over thinking that we might need to free up quite a bit of room. A Khmai girl who was sitting in the middle row bravely makes her way to the back to sit next to me and only one other person gets in the van... I guess it was just the rest of the family come out to see one person off. So with four of us squished in the back the Khmai girl presses herself as much as she can against the right side of the van and the window. She doesn't even lean back but sits forward practically hugging the back of the seat in front of her. =P OK maybe it wasn't that bad but I did feel bad for her having to sit next to this weird foreigner and a guy nonetheless. Thats not all. The best part of the 7 hour trip was when we stopped about three quarters of the way back and let someone off. In the middle row there sat a middle-aged Khmai man, an elderly man, (Who was really cute when he talked to the other people in the van with his wispy grampa voice and laughed almost every time after he said something. Emily wanted to hug him) and a middle-aged Khmai lady sitting right next to the door. We stop because the elderly grampa guy is getting off. The lady opens the door and gets down to let the grampa out but the moment he's out she practically jumps back in and slams to door shut. The four of us are in the back just kinda wondering what just happened. She then takes her bag and puts it next to her on the middle seat where the grampa was sitting. Haha, we just didn't know what to do and couldn't talk to the lady because we don't speak Khmai. So we just stayed squished for the rest of the journey. Emily drooled on my shoulder. Haha, just kidding. Oh but when we finaly got to PP we felt like movie stars pulling up to the taxi stop, which realy was just a street corner. But when we were about a block away from the stop guys who were sitting by the side of the road would jump up when they saw our van and actually chase it down the block on foot banging on the windows and the sides shouting tuk tuk? or moto moto? By the time we actually stopped at the designated taxi stop there was a crowd of about 20 guys around us all asking if we needed transportation within the city. We had to fend them off with our limited Khmai, "Aht tey awk-goon." (a direct translation of "no thank you") "Some one is going to pick us up." Not sure if they got the second part but after a few minutes they realized that we weren't going to change our mind and returned to lounging by the side of the road waiting for the next potential fare. Pretty wild place this Cambodia.

-Jon